Things That Don't
by bj
Summary: Things are just the same if you think about it. Amy, Bright, Colin. Pre-accident.


it's: things that don't  
by: bj  
in sum: things are just the same if you think about it.  
label: amy, bright, colin. pre-accident.  
rating: pg. two words.  
sissies: "we hold these truths."  
legalities: don't own, don't sue.  
i say: for the three scene challenge, but it's definitely more het than slash (from me!), so. just here. yay for the transcript archive.  
muse: the contrelamontre three scene challenge. each scene must begin with the last word of the previous one, the first scene beginning with the last word of the story. eighty-odd minutes (ninety minute limit).  
you say: all comments appreciated, answered, and archived. allcanadiangirl@lycos.com.

  
**things that don't**

Things haven't really changed that much. Amy still sits in the back seat, Colin still sits in the front, but now he leans between, back, smiling.

"Hey," he says and Amy says, "hey," leaning forward against her seatbelt and they kiss good morning with their smiles. No tongue, because Bright is driving and tongue with your brother in the car is just. Ew.

Things haven't really changed at all. They'll still go to the movies on Saturday afternoons and watch tv in a pile on the couch and they still tie up the phone for hours between the three of them.

Things are just the same if you think about it. But with good morning kisses and holding hands during lunch.

Dating your brother's best friend is like. It's like. It's like dating your best friend's sister.

Amy sits back with a satisfied smile and Bright makes gagging noises—"I'm going to puke all over the fucking truck if you two don't quit it"—and Colin laughs as he puts his seatbelt on—"it's been a week, man, get over it."

It's like that.

  
  
"That might be the best lay-up I've seen in years," Colin says, retrieving the ball from the bleachers.

Bright shakes his head. He can't figure out how the ball got all the way over there when he was aiming for the basket. "I'm totally off."

Colin smiles. Colin's always smiling these days, and Bright doesn't like it very much. It's not like Colin never smiled before he and Amy started happening, but now it's a perfect, wide, angelic smile twenty-four-seven and Bright doesn't like it at all. Not after three months.

They jump off again, Bright's hand slapping ineffectually into the air as Colin speeds away. He sighs, he gives a ragged defence. Bright doesn't enjoy The Game as much when they're competing.

The gym is nearly silent, just the squeak of their sneakers and Bright's hard breath. Colin hops up and Bright's fingers graze his elbow as he puts the ball through the net. Colin rests his hands on his hips as Bright grabs the ball on its second bounce.

"It's the wind," Colin says, his face is like the sun.

Bright squints his eyes and throws the ball back into the bleachers. "Don't."

  
  
_Don't hurt her_. The first three coherent words Bright said when Colin told him he maybe might like Amy kind of the way she liked him, and yeah he was thinking about asking her out because he'd heard she probably wouldn't say no.

Colin thinks Bright liked the way things were, despite what he said. Really, Colin did too, but you know. Your best friend's sister likes you, you're supposed to like her back. And he did, mostly, right, but he thinks not quite as much and not in exactly the same way she liked him. Likes him. Will always like him, she says. Loves him.

That's really the thing, he thinks, lying at the edge of the lake. She wants so much, she wants it all _right now_ and he. Doesn't. That's what makes him decide he'll break up with her.

It will be over, and she'll cry and never speak to him again for a few weeks and Bright will kick the shit out of him, or start to and then change his mind.

He and Bright will be okay, because they never wanted things to change in the first place. Amy. Amy will understand, and she'll eventually know that things before were better, when they were all friends, that it was a good thing they had.

Colin knows things will never be quite the same after, but they're not the same now so he doesn't get why he should be worried about that.

"We should be heading back soon," Bright says.

"Hmm. He's right, Colin," Amy says. "My dad will lose it if we're late for dinner again." She sounds lazy and he knows her eyes are closed against the sun.

Right now, he thinks. "Hang on a second. Let's just lie here a little longer."

"We don't have all day," she says.

Right now things don't have to change at all. He smiles. "Sure we do."

Nobody moves, the three of them packed together tighter than necessary on the blanket, but Colin likes that, and he's going to miss it. It's like double cheeseburgers and banana splits at Mama Joy's, it's like watching _Speed_ with a barrel of popcorn and a case of Jolt. It's one of their things.

  
End.


End file.
